What's in a name?
by Lord Ironwolf
Summary: With the Stone Temple in drydock for the forseeable future, Captain Pondsworth needs a new ship. Admiral Quarren has one for him, if he wants it.


Admiral Quarren stood as his guest entered his office. "Captain Pondsworth, thank you for stopping by."

"Thank you for inviting me." He came forward and shook the Admiral's hand. "I gather this is regarding a new assignment? Old Stony is going to be in the repair dock for quite a while. As much as I enjoy the vacation, it would be nice to ship out again."

"I understand entirely." He waved Pondsworth to a chair, "Have a seat and we'll get to the details of that. Would you like some tea?" This simple courtesy was almost an inside joke with them. They both knew that where there was Pondsworth, there was tea.

"Please."

Admiral Quarren pressed a button on his desk and a steward who had been waiting with tea already prepared, immediately brought in a serving tray with a pot of tea and cups. He served the Captain and left.

"Well then," the Admiral had taken his seat again and then started, "I have a ship for you, if you want it."

"From the way you say that I gather there might be a reason I wouldn't?

"You're well aware of the politics surrounding our mission. I've requested reinforcements and since they can't ignore or refuse the request, they have been sent. However, they're being petty about it." He sighed, "We're getting reinforcements, but they're sending ships from the reserve fleet."

"Let me guess, ships that if I were to encounter any of these ships on patrol, I'd recognize them as 'Chaos' design?"

"I'm afraid so, they are pre-heresy built, but these ships have never been touched by traitors or Chaos. They've been certified free of any taint by the Mechanicus and the Inquisition."

"As long as they are taint free, the design doesn't concern me much. I want a ship to set out to space in, so may I simply ask, what do you have for me?"

"Excellent. We actually got a bit of luck." The admiral handed Pondsworth a dataslate. "Turning back the 13th Black Crusade left the fleet short of battleships to use as flagships. To fill the gap until new ships can be produced, they're refitting ships from the pre-heresy reserve fleet. This is the first of a new class of ship. It's being designated as a Command Cruiser." Pondsworth activated the slate and examined the ship displayed on it. "As you can see, it's an extensive refit using the hull of a Hades class heavy cruiser, and there have been some extensive modifications. The most obvious is the prow."

Pondsworth could only agree. It appears as if a prow from another Chaos cruiser had been cut off, inverted, attached to the front, and then thinned down so that there was only a modest gap between the top and bottom parts. "This configuration gives the ship the equivalent of an armored prow. The only drawback of that is that the extra mass makes the ship somewhat slower than a normal Hades, but not any slower than an average Imperial cruiser. The second most obvious thing is the weapon batteries. The old pre-heresy design weapon batteries have been completely removed and replaced with current Imperial standard weapon batteries. The overall firepower is the same as the Hades, but there won't be any additional supply problems now that this ship has the same weapons as every other Imperial ship. The prow and dorsal lance batteries were left untouched." Pondsworth smiled slightly at that. His ship, 'Old Stoney' was a Gothic class cruiser and Pondsworth preferred lance armed ships.

"What's not so obvious is actually more important." The admiral went on, "This ship has a separate flag bridge for commanding a task force or fleet. They've also given it an enhanced defense package. As a result, the shields and the anti-ordinance turrets are half again as strong as the ones on the Stone Temple. It has enough combat strength to engage ships of the line, but its true role is command and control. And it has enough defenses to be able to survive long enough to do that.

They were reluctant to release it to me and I had to get a bit nasty about it. Apparently this was a Magos hobby ship that he had been developing for some time. That's what I meant earlier when I said we were lucky. He had just finished it when I had arrived with my request for ships. But I was promised support and re-enforcements and I'm not going to let them back out of it. I'm sure it's pure spite, but the rest of the re-enforcements are also all reserve fleet pre-heresy ships despite new production becoming available. I don't mind half as much I pretended to. I need combat worthy ships for this sector and I don't really care much where they come from.

"May I make a suggestion? Have them painted white before they're sent out. It may help cut down on any embarrassing confusion."

"White? Why white?"

"Have you ever heard of anyone encountering a white chaos ship?"

"Good point."

"One last question," Pondsworth paused for a sip of tea. Actually it was more to steel his nerves before he asked the question he was sure he would not like the answer to more than a desire for tea, but then, he always had a desire for tea. "It's a flagship so who will be the flag?" Pondsworth was familiar with the current crop of flag grade officers looking for a command. As a whole he had a better opinion of the dregs in his teapot than any of them. The dregs had at least once been useful. He did not relish the idea of being a Captain under any of them. At least the flag bridge was separate from main bridge and he wouldn't have to be near him constantly.

"I was wondering when you'd ask that." Admiral Quarren leaned back in his chair and allowed himself a slight smile as he anticipated Pondsworths' reaction to his next statement. "You will be the flag."

Pondsworths' reaction was to simply pause while raising his teacup for a sip and then arching one eyebrow inquiringly. Captain Pondsworth was well noted for his unusually calm composure and very understated reactions to things that would startle others. Quarren had hoped to get a reaction out of him, but the reaction he got was not unexpected either. "I'm not trying to flatter you, but you're the best fleet captain I have in the sector. Your recent encounters all back that statement up so I'm making it official. The promotion orders are already sent. You can wear two hats and be the Captain as well as the Flag or you can pick your own captain, your choice. This is also an opportunity to rid yourself of Commissar Griggs. He will stay with the Stone Temple and be the ships Commissar to the new captain there.

Pondsworth gave it a moment's thought and then said, "No, let's have him come along with me. Although he's a bit abrasive, we have managed to establish a good working relationship. I'd just be assigned someone else and breaking in Commissars is such a tedious process. Besides, think about how much it will annoy the people that went through so much trouble to get him assigned to me in the first place believing he would kill me within a week. I'll deny it is you tell anyone but it's comfortable to have him around. He's a known factor. He may be overly brutal and direct, but he is not random, overzealous, cruel, or despite appearances, stupid. I find that last one rather endearing. Also, I have no doubts where his loyalties lay. Politics being what they are, I really like that last point."

"He comes along then," the Admiral replied affably, "any other questions?"

"None. As you said, excellent. I'll take it. What is her name?"

"That turned out to be a bigger issue than I thought it would be. The ship had been reserved so long the original name had been lost. All they had given it was an inventory number. They rechristened it before they sent it out. It's called the Vescere Bracis Meis."

Pondsworth's cup hit the saucer with a clink. "What did you say?"

"Vescere Bracis Meis. It's impressive sounding, but I have no idea what it means."

Pondsworth seemed to be having some trouble with his composure. "If you don't mind me asking, just how badly did you irritate the people who named it?"

"Fairly badly I think, the Magos whose hobby ship it was did not want to part with it. After a great deal of shouting he finally relented on the condition that he and the other Magos get to name this ship and the other ships they're sending us. It was a minor point to me but seemed like a major one to them so I gave in on it. They all took turns contributing names." He looked at Pondsworth suspiciously, "Just what do you know that I don't?"

Pondsworths composure was defiantly slipping, he had to set his tea aside to keep from spilling it. "One more question, did you happen to let it slip that you didn't speak High Gothic?"

"I think that came out during the shouting match." Pondsworth was beginning to quiver and if he didn't know better, the admiral would swear that he was trying to suppress laughter, but that was not possible. "Ok, again, what do you know that I don't?"

Pondsworth broke into a very uncharacteristic chuckle, "Only that Vescere Bracis Meis translates to 'Eat My Shorts'."

Admiral Quarren took the dataslate back from Pondsworth and scrolled down to the list of ships that were being sent and checked the names. He looked at it in dismay as he noted that all of the ships he was receiving had impressive sounding High Gothic names.

"Oh sweet Emperor." Admiral Quarren wanted to break Pondsworths calm façade but this was not the way he expected to do it.

Still chuckling, Pondsworth reached over and took the data slate from the Admirals numb fingers and read down the list and translated while the Admiral gave himself a double facepalm. "Let's see, we have, 'Kiss My Ass', 'Lick My Balls', 'Suck Me', 'Up Your Ass'" he stopped reading and read the next name again to be sure he had it right.

He looked up at the admiral and said, "Oh dear, that one is REALLY personal." And then he broke out into gale of laughter that no one in the Empire would have thought even remotely possible.

Authors Note:

This was supposed to be a short scene from another story way down the line. Character description is sketchy because you're supposed to know who they are before the story starts. It just kinda grew and since I have no idea when I will get to the point where I would use it,, I decided to just post it. It's part of the Pondsworth and Griggs Saga.

We have something rather unique here, a Warhammer 40K story that does not have a single death in it.

This story was inspired by the fact that I actually built the ship described and used it to play BFG


End file.
